Stephen Hamilton Named Acting Director Of The Sag Harbor Cinema

On Tuesday, May 5, the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema (SHC) announced the appointment of Stephen Hamilton to the role of acting director. Mr. Hamilton, who co-founded Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater in 1992 with his wife, Emma Walton Hamilton, and the late Sybil Christopher, has been working closely with SHC on a part-time basis, especially on its itinerant screenings.

Many of the duties Mr. Hamilton will now assume were most recently handled by SHC’s founding Executive Director Gillian Gordon, who recently stepped down after a year in the position.

“[Hamilton] is familiar with our staff and current programming, and brings his clear-headedness and experience to this important interim role,” said the Sag Harbor Cinema board in a release. “Our Search Committee has also begun the formal process of finding a new permanent executive director, and we could not be more pleased to have Mr. Hamilton coordinating operations for this period of time.”

“I’m stepping in to bridge that gap between now and the time a new executive director is announced,” said Mr. Hamilton when reached by phone on Tuesday. “The board is already engaged in a search for a replacement. That’s a long process.”

While the new Sag Harbor Cinema on Main Street was originally scheduled to open in mid-April, the COVID-19 crisis has pushed that opening down the road — for how far, nobody yet knows.

For now, Mr. Hamilton is focusing on exploring how the cinema might operate when it does open.

“Will we be wearing masks and eliminating two thirds of the seating?” he asked. “Nobody knows. We’re all just tumbling in the dark, formulating the ideas of best practices and how we’ll be able to do this.”

Much of what lies ahead will also be determined by theatergoers themselves.

“I’m sort of on a listening tour and finding out what is the audience sentiment,” he said. “I’m sure that’s going to change as things go along. That’s another part of the mission. When you do have a protocol you feel is safe, are audiences going to do it?”

In the meantime, Mr. Hamilton said he and others involved in the cinema are meeting daily to go over financials, budgeting and operations logistics.

“What’s the audience experience going to be like when they come through the door? How do you really operate? Who does what, and what do we need to do?” he asked. “I’m making those lists and templates on how it’s going to work.”

In his new role, Mr. Hamilton joins SHC Artistic Director Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan and Cinema Manager Sean McDonald, both of whom he said come to their positions with a great deal of experience.

Mr. Hamilton has already been working closely with Ms. Vallan on the cinema’s remote programming, producing events at various locations around the East End as the cinema has been under construction.

“We already have a good working relationship,” said Mr. Hamilton. “It’s been a gas working with her.”

When asked to reflect on his new role with the Sag Harbor Cinema, Mr. Hamilton had strong praise for the people who have brought the project from concept to reality.

“Because I’m now faced with this on a day-to-day basis, the awe I feel for April Gornik, Susan Mead and those early movers and shakers is coming into focus,” Mr. Hamilton said. “Those primary, principle people who have gotten us this far raised an extraordinary amount of money and faced so many hurdles along the way to get the cinema to where it is now, just on the edge of being able to open.

“For me it’s both inspiring and encouraging,” he added. “It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around the persistence, passion and perseverance they brought to the table. It’s impressive and has never been in such sharp focus for me as it now is.”